64 “a poisonous woman”: FGDN, II, 151
65 “As long as they are”: Mackay, 399
66 “She is a terrible looking woman”: ibid., 394
67 “The influence of Lady C.”: ibid.
68 “that Beresford had the whole Navy”: ibid.
69 “the Admiralty fear no inquiry”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 101
70 “There is not a man”: Mackay, 394
71 “I am at a loss”: Lee, II, 605
72 “My dear William”: ibid., 606
73 “about 15 young, unmarried nieces”: Magnus, 375
74 “seriously unhinged”: ibid., 376
75 “This is very sad”: ibid.
76 “youngish man”: Mackay, 398
77 “pleasant in manner”: ibid.
78 “When I agreed”: Magnus, 375
79 “Beresford... can do more”: FGDN, II, 210
80 “Like a rhinoceros”: ibid., 41
81 “Hell”: ibid.
82 “In a country like ours”: Barker, 69
83 “Keep your hair on”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 100
84 “that I was Jekyll and Hyde”: Fisher, Memories, 184
85 “was bad for me”: FGDN, II, 174
86 “When Your Majesty backed up”: Lee, II, 599
87 “Do you know”: Fisher, Memories, 223
88 “a pack of cowards”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 103
89 “What really amounts”: FGDN, II, 177
90 “Either the quarterdeck and silence”: ibid., 173
91 “strong objection”: FGDN, II, 43
92 “They are all ‘blue funkers’”: ibid.
93 “If... the Rear Admiral thought”: Padfield, Aim Straight, 185
94 “A STRANGE OCCURRENCE”: ibid.
95 “a gross scandal”: ibid.
96 “a sickening tale”: ibid.
97 “It can no longer be denied”: The Times, July 6, 1908
98 “We say frankly”: ibid.
99 “alleged dissensions”... “unverified rumours”: Padfield, Aim Straight, 186
100 “Personally... I shall never forget”: Magnus, 371
101 “My dear Lord Charles Beresford”: Lee, II, 600
102 “Make a disturbance”: Magnus, 371
103 “Knollys... dead on”: FGDN, II, 43
104 “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 188
105 “During the whole of my tenure”: Bacon, Fisher, II, 49
106 “even under pressure”: FGDN, II, 247
107 “I shall of course obey”: ibid.
108 “I always look”: Bacon, From 1900 Onward, 124
109 “the King pointed out”: Bacon, Fisher, II, 113
110 “Lord Charles and Admiral Lambton”: Bacon, From 1900 Onward, 127
111 “The King has spoken to me”: Bacon, Fisher, II, 114
112 “the cleverest officer in the Navy”: Mackay, 297
113 “Fisher, of course, had no right”: Bacon, ibid.
114 “quite violent”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 192
115 “Is the House”: FGDN, II, 212
116 “lead to the harmony”: Bacon, Fisher, II, 53
117 “It was dramatic”: Mackay, 413
118 “did not consider it”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 198
119 “We have... roped him in”: FGDN, II, 249
120 “satisfies in substance”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 198
121 “satisfied... there is no such deficiency”: ibid., 199
122 “[The committee] feel bound”: Bacon, Fisher, II, 55
123 “The Committee, by not squashing”: FGDN, II, 262
124 “I thought they were great men”: ibid., 260
125 “Disgusted”: ibid., 267
126 “Asquith ‘watered it down’”: ibid.
127 “Will consider most seriously”: ibid., 276
128 “a system of espionage”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 203
129 “the mulatto”: ibid.
130 “Fear God and Dread Nought”: FGDN, II, 278
131 Fisher’s decision on his motto: ibid.
132 “SO REALLY SORRY”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 186
133 “had no personal objections”: McKenna, 90
134 “Sir Arthur Wilson stands out”: ibid.
135 “I do not say”: Marder, Scapa Flow, I, 186
PART 4: BRITAIN AND GERMANY: POLITICS AND GROWING TENSION, 1906–1910
Chapter 29
Campbell-Bannerman: The Liberals Return to Power
1 “We will refer it”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 290
2 “I see you are already tired”: ibid., I, 62
3 “I sat down timidly”: ibid., 100
4 “As to the censure”: ibid., 156
5 “Rosebery was one of the ablest”: Wilson, 236
6 “in apparent difference”: Asquith, Fifty Years, I, 278
7 “well-suited to a position”: Thomas Pakenham, 534
8 “Campbell-Bannerman’s great advantage”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 83
9 “The door has always been open”: Asquith, Fifty Years, II, 3
10 “a small people”: Spender, Asquith, I, 135
11 “We... held that the war”: Jenkins, 114
12 “We are in the right”: Wilson, 301
13 “The Boers have committed an aggression”: Jenkins, 115
14 “Anti-Joe, but never pro-Kruger”: Asquith, Fifty Years, I, 303
15 “Master Haldane”... “Master Grey”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, I, 342
16 “A vote for the Liberals”: ibid., 291
17 “Madame’s health”: ibid., II, 48
18 “who deserved”: ibid.
19 “wholesale burning of farms”: Wilson, 348
20 “A phrase often used”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, I, 336
21 “I never said a word”: ibid., 337
22 “We have not changed our view”: Jenkins, 125
23 “war to the knife—and fork”: Asquith, Fifty Years, II, 4
24 “I must plough my furrow”: ibid., 128
25 “so straight, so good-tempered”: Lee, II, 442
26 “quite sound on foreign politics”: ibid.
27 “I lunched with the King”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 174
28 “about half my meals”: ibid., 176
29 “The effective management of Irish affairs”: Asquith, Fifty Years, II, 33
30 “Emphatically and explicitly”: ibid., 35
31 “Campbell-Bannerman... was genial”: Haldane, Autobiography, 156
32 “that ingenious person”: Margot Asquith, III, 95
33 “a place for which”: ibid., 96.
34 “The more robust and stronger”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 60
35 “all buttoned-up”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 194
36 “I wanted him to know”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 61
37 “No surrender!”: Haldane, Autobiography, 169
38 “I am sure that those”: Jenkins, 153
39 “The conditions are in one respect”: ibid., 151
40 “with the air of one”: Haldane, Autobiography, 171
41 “What about the War Office?”: ibid., 173
42 “My thoughts have often gone back”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 198
43 “Haldane is always climbing”: ibid., 39
44 “We shall see”: Haldane, Autobiography, 182
45 “Myself he did not like”: ibid.
46 “I congratulate you, Sir Henry”: Tuchman, Proud Tower, 365
47 “Feeling among the horses’ heads”: Haldane, Autobiography, 183
48 “Certainly, sir”: ibid.
49 “as a young and blushing virgin”: ibid.
50 “The Right Honorable gentleman”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 273
51 “In the case of Germany”: ibid., 208
52 “The growth of armaments”: ibid.
53 “My greatest regret”: Asquith, Memories, I, 233
54 “
Three words made peace”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, I, 351
55 “Henry is a good man”: ibid., II, 397
56 “How strange to have spent”: ibid., 287
57 “a blazing summer afternoon... horses’ hooves”: Arthur Ponsonby in ibid., 293
58 “I know how great”: ibid., 294
59 “seemed to have recovered”: ibid., 377
60 “Don’t telegraph to ‘the King’”: ibid., 384
61 “You are a wonderful colleague”: Margot Asquith, III, 136
62 “This is not the last of me”: Spender, Asquith, I, 196
Chapter 30
The Asquiths, Henry and Margot
1 “simply... put the ladder before him”: Spender, Asquith, I, 22
2 “the best intellectual apparatus”: Maurice, 164
3 “Asquith did not originate much”: ibid.
4 “We were both rising”: Haldane, Autobiography, 103
5 “too forensic”: Escott, 362
6 “An intelligent, rather good-looking man”: Spender, Asquith, I, 78
7 “had a conversation with Mr. Asquith”: ibid.
8 “A beautiful and simple spirit”: Haldane, Autobiography, 103
9 “No one would have called her”: Jenkins, 30
10 “When I discovered”: ibid., 54
11 “She was so different from me”: Spender, Asquith, I, 98
12 “I was anxious”: ibid.
13 “The dinner where I was introduced”: Margot Asquith, II, 195
14 “Asquith is the only kind of man”: Jenkins, 75
15 “You tell me not to stop”: ibid.
16 “Small, rapid, nervous”: Margot Asquith, II, 77
17 “I ride better than most people”: ibid., 270
18 “I have broken both collarbones”: ibid.
19 “I am afraid you resigned”: ibid., I, 127
20 “Do look at Miss Tennant!”: ibid., 128
21 “I am afraid you have not read”: ibid., II, 40
22 “I hear you are going to marry”: ibid., I, 251
23 “I will marry you, Peter”: ibid., 178
24 “This afternoon as I sat”: Jenkins, 81
25 “I was filled with profound misgivings”: Spender, Asquith, I, 99
26 “wastes her time”: Margot Asquith, II, 80
27 “It is not possible”: Spender, Asquith, I, 96
28 “I fired two shots”: Asquith, Memories, 309
29 “Supposing I were to give”: Spender, Asquith, I, 126
30 “An adventure more childishly conceived”: Jenkins, 101
31 “Having done by their blundering folly”: ibid.
32 “Dr. Jim”: Margot Asquith, III, 26
33 “My husband and I”: ibid.
34 “No man can lead”: Young, 170
35 “war to the knife—and fork”: Asquith, Fifty Years, II, 4
36 “There is nothing in the world”: Spender, Asquith, I, 139
37 “to which I can fairly say”: ibid., 82
38 “Go and bring the sledgehammer”: Tuchman, Proud Tower, 371
39 “an inconvenient and dangerous”: Lee, II, 582
40 “Asquith was a man who knew”: Churchill, Great Contemporaries, 113
41 “The first essential”: ibid., 117
42 “The Right Honorable Gentleman must wait”: Churchill, Great Contemporaries, 120
43 “What we have heard today”: ibid., 124
44 “In Cabinet, he was”: ibid., 116
45 “In his earlier days”: Haldane, Autobiography, 103
46 “He disliked ‘talking shop’”: Churchill, Great Contemporaries, 116
47 “For many years”: Jenkins, 94
48 “No one who has not experienced”: ibid.
49 “when my husband became Prime Minister”: Margot Asquith, III, 33
50 “I am horribly impatient”: LVS, 9
51 “Margot I find rather trying”: ibid.
52 “leaving a wake”: ibid.
53 “I have sometimes walked up and down”: ibid.
54 “It is a grief to me”: ibid., 10
55 “a slight weakness”: ibid., 471
56 “little harem”: ibid., II
57 “a splendid, virginal, comradely”: ibid., 5
58 “talking and laughing”: ibid., 532
59 “You have given me”: ibid., 553
60 “Your lover—for all time”: ibid., 588
61 “Darling—shall I tell you”: ibid., 589
62 “No woman should expect”: ibid., 12
63 “a woman without refinement”: ibid., 13
64 “I’m far too fond”: ibid.
65 “Oh... if only Venetia would marry”: ibid.
66 “Why can’t I marry you”: ibid., 551
67 “I know quite well”: ibid., 557
Chapter 31
Sir Edward Grey and Liberal Foreign Policy
1 “of pure pleasure”: Trevelyan, 17
2 “Sir Edward Grey”: ibid., 20
3 “In the clear, cold light”: ibid., 37
4 “I believe, however busy”: ibid., 32
5 “I cannot think it possible”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 19
6 “the fullest and clearest statement”: Trevelyan, 62
7 “There was no pleasure for me”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 31
8 “I understand at last”: Trevelyan, 57
9 “I... said that if we went on”: ibid.
10 “The one blow”: ibid.
11 “Intensely distasteful”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 26
12 “The cottage became dearer”: Trevelyan, 49
13 “that of having everything”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 29
14 “an earthly paradise”: Grey, Fallodon Papers, 128
15 “The angler is by the river”: ibid., 132
16 “And now what”: ibid., 4
17 “If you will lie on your back”: ibid., 28
18 “The greatest of all sport”: ibid., 139
20 “in his few intervals indoors”: Trevelyan, 41
21 “The memories he amassed”: ibid., 40
22 “the luxuriance of water meadows”: ibid., 42
23 “I am alone here”: ibid., 46
24 “unfriendly act”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 19
25 “a feeling of simple pleasure”: ibid., 49
26 “Suddenly... there came”: ibid., 9
27 “The abrupt and rough peremptoriness”: ibid., 10
28 “like a noose”: ibid., 11
29 “The French were being humiliated”: ibid., 51
30 “what the British Government”: Wilson, 524
31 “Indications keep trickling in”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 115
32 “He put the question”: Wilson, 525
33 “I could read French easily”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 86
34 “In the event of an attack”: Spender, Campbell-Bannerman, II, 254
35 “did not attribute”: Nicolson, 130
36 “Early in 1906”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 91
37 “Conversations such as that”: ibid., 92
38 “My dear Asquith”: ibid., 93
39 “What really determines”: BD, VI, 784
40 “the most unbending determination”: ibid., III, Appendix A, 419
Chapter 32
The Anglo-Russian Entente and the Bosnian Crisis
1 “barbaric, Asiatic, and tyrannical”: Empress Frederick, 209
2 “My own opinion”: Nicolson, 153
3 “The alternate hectoring and cajolery”: ibid.
4 “on little lacquered feet”: ibid., 158
5 “Every day... I regret it”: Bülow, II, 325
6 “great pleasure... In him you have a man”: Lee, II, 289. The account of Isvolsky’s code is taken from ibid., 326
7 “nothing but good feelings”: Gooch, History of Modern Europe, 363
8 “New institutions”: Lee, II, 567
9 “Isvolsky’s former eagerness”: Nicolson, 163
10 “He fears, I think”: ibid., 185
11 “I do not wish”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 156
12 “beaming with pleasure”: BD, IV, 283
13 “the methods of a humane and highly skilled dentist”: Nicolson, 175
14 “outside the Russian sphere”: ibid.
15 The provisions of the Anglo-Russian Convention are taken from ibid., 325–27
16 “We watch the end of the negotiations”: Gooch, History of Modern Europe, 396
17 “No one will reproach England”: Nicolson, 188
18 “Yes, when taken all round”: ibid.
19 “There was no question”: ibid., 172
20 “You may call it ‘encirclement’”: ibid., 174
21 “An Insult to Our Country”: Lee, II, 587
22 “a common murderer”: ibid.
23 “hobnobbing”: ibid.
24 “The Queen lay on deck”: FGDN, II, 180
25 “wasn’t actually sick”: ibid.
26 “he was more likely to meet”: Magnus, 409
27 “is simply like a child”: FGDN, II, 181
28 “It’s a jolly good thing”: Lee, II, 594
29 “What a very nice time”: FGDN, II, 183
30 “amiable and chatty”: Nicolson, 155
31 “Brazen impudence”: Bing, 234
32 “The Whig Statesman”: Mansergh, 128
33 “it mattered not to us”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 169
34 “it is an essential principle”: Churchill, World Crisis, I, 35
35 “inopportune”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 172
36 “Isvolsky went on to say”: ibid., 178
37 “a piece of brigandage”: Mansergh, 127
38 “only at the same time”: Grey, Twenty-Five Years, I, 185
39 “Our relations with Austria”: Woodward, 182
40 “Austria-Hungary behaved”: E.T.S. Dugdale, III, 305; DGP, XXVI, 110
41 “The conference won’t come off”: DGP, XXVI, 169
42 “duplicitous”... “no gentleman”: Mansergh, 132
43 “Asquith asked me”: Newton, 371
44 “Your Sir Edward Grey”: Gooch, History of Modern Europe, 418
45 “unless Russia agreed”: Spender, Asquith, I, 248
46 “We expect a precise answer”: DGP, XXVI, 693
47 “with God’s help”: Spender, Asquith, I, 248
48 “Russia’s recent conduct”: Gooch, History of Modern Europe, 423
49 “I solved the Bosnian crisis”: Bülow, I, 174
50 “managed the affair excellently”: ibid.